"Why not you?"

Loup was stupefied, his black eyes trembling sporadically as he watched the white eyes of the woman in front of him, eyes that seemed to curve into laughter.

"W-Who—!" He didn't even manage to speak, his words cut short by the rasping of his breath. Tears fell faster, and Loup abandoned the attempt to speak altogether.

Instead, he tried to put distance between himself and the woman, despite being blocked by the glowing pillar.

The pale woman didn't answer him. She crouched down and took something out of the pocket of her simple yet luxurious robe.

It was a crimson metallic box, runes slithering around it, forming a harrowing sight.

She placed it on the floor between herself and Loup, and instantly the young wolf felt as if the world around him became muddled, drowned beneath invisible barriers.

For some inexplicable reason, he began to believe that at that moment… he was truly alone.

All alone with a strange woman standing before him.

His heart began to claw against his ribs, slamming into them like a mad, spooked horse.

Loup balled his fists, his eyes narrowing as he tried to look threatening instead of looking like a sheep.

He failed miserably.

The woman giggled. And Loup cowered even more.

"You still didn't answer my question," the young woman said. "Why not you?"

She squatted down in front of him, pale eyes transfixed into his so deeply that Loup felt nothing could be hidden from them.

"I—!" He parted his lips, his voice hoarse. "I-I didn't deserve it." He stuttered.

And as if a dam had broken…

As if there was now one being in this whole world who could see his suffering and was willing to give him an attentive ear…the words poured out uninterrupted.

"I — we — did nothing to deserve it!" he howled, eyes bloodshot. "My grandmother worked hard every day! She was nothing but a mortal, a Wasted with no Origin, yet every night and day she worked in the royal palace, destroying her health just to earn a bit of money!"

Tears blurred his vision. He bit his lips and wiped his face harshly with the back of his hand.

"She never bothered anyone! And she never accepted anyone's help to take care of me! She did it, she did it alone, by herself! And she did it while being old and ill!!!"

Loup's words came out like the howl of a wounded beast. There was indescribable pain knotted inside him, but also a deep sense of misery that seemed to freeze him from within.

The young woman's face didn't waver. She still wore her smile like a mask.

Yet she listened.

Loup could sense it. At that instant, he was the sole focus of her attention.

Nothing else existed except him.

He was seen.

He was seen, at last.

"S-So why?" he whimpered, his head drooping. "Why me? Why should I be the one to suffer when I did nothing? Why should my grandmother be the one to die when she was innocent? When she was a hardworking woman?"

He laughed bitterly.

"And do you know what is worse?" He slowly lifted his head again to look at the white-haired woman. "She was planning to stop working in two weeks. I am grown now, awakened with an Origin, and I had landed a job as a hunter."

He smiled forlornly.

"So tell me, why me? Why us? Why now, of all times?"

"It's how the world is, you know," the girl said softly, smiling. "The world, and the people who live in it, don't need a reason to hurt you. Most of the time, at least."

"And you are not the only one."

"Huh?" Loup exclaimed, raising his tear-soaked face toward her.

"You are not the only one living a life of pain, a life of misery, a life where nothing seems worth it. You are not the only one living something you never asked for. You are not the only one in pain because of injustice."

The more she spoke, the more Loup's face twisted with searing anger, as if wondering why any of this should matter to him.

"It's not to void your experience," the pale woman whispered. "It's only to teach you something I was taught when everything was nothing but darkness."

She paused, drawing a slow breath, then continued,

"Feel the pain you need to feel, but never linger on it for too long. As you can see, the world does not stop to let you mourn, and what happened today could happen tomorrow as well."

Loup's breathing calmed under her soft voice. "What… what do you want me to do?"

"My master once told me something," the young girl said. "Fate can force you onto a path, but how you walk that path depends only on you and you alone. That is what free will is."

She grinned.

"If Fate is the stage, then free will is the play."

"So you have clearly been forced onto a path. So what?" She asked, her gaze deep and unblinking. "What I wish to know is how you plan to walk it."

Loup was still perplexed by everything happening around him. He knew nothing of the events unfolding at that moment, yet somehow he felt he was standing at a crucial moment in his life.

A crossroads where everything would change — for better or for worse.

Loup didn't care about such things. To him, nothing could be worse than his current situation.

He focused on the pale woman once more.

She didn't extended her hand toward him for help. Yet he could feel the call within it.

And so he parted his lips.

"Strong," he said hoarsely. "I want to be strong."

"For what?"

"To protect myself," he answered. "To protect the ones I will come to care for."

"Will you not seek vengeance?"

Loup paused. He opened his mouth to speak, but then hesitated and closed it again.

He lowered his head, his mind seemingly thrown into a dilemma. The white-haired girl was patient. She waited without a word.

Around them, the folk continued their affairs without much care for the two of them.

Finally, Loup raised his head again and shook it. "My grandmother wouldn't like that," he said, not convinced by his own words. "She always wished for me to live long and in peace. To be kind to others, just as she was kind to them."

"But the world was not kind to her." The girl's words were like a sword-thrust into Loup. "So why would you be?"

"I won't discard the lessons she taught me," Loup growled at her. "I won't. That's all I have left of her."

The girl paused, then slowly smiled even wider. "Fine. But you need help to grow stronger."

Loup said nothing, simply watching her. He was not dumb, he knew well that this person was here for a reason.

So he stared at her through his dried, tear-stained eyes, waiting for her to finally state her business.

"You are not so dumb, after all," she giggled, then her expression shifted, growing more serious.

"You have been chosen, Loup, as our next member," she said. "You will be helped in gaining strength, and in any endeavor you wish to accomplish."

"The First Fang," Loup finally said, unable to stop the wisp of hatred from surfacing. "I want to at least kill the one who delivered the killing strike. Can I do that? Will my grandmother forsake me if my hands become bloody?"

His head hung low, as if ashamed of wishing to avenge his own family.

"It's only normal to seek retribution when the world denied it to you."

"But…but he is… he is a prince. He is of the Founder bloodline."

"Yet he bleeds like any man," she added with a wide grin, "and bleed he will."

Loup lifted his head again and saw the outstretched hand of the smiling young girl before him.

"We shall help you complete your vengeance, if you join us."

"How?" Loup asked, feeling the danger of accepting such an invitation at this moment of his life, yet still walking toward it. "How can I join you?"

At that instant, something — or someone — seemed to whisper inside his head. It felt like the howling of a wolf, yet words flared from nowhere within his mind.

"The path forward is made only of bad choices. That is all we have. So we shall walk it. And we shall walk it with a trail of blood behind us."

He gasped, his mind dazed for a moment, only to be brought back by the soft touch of the young woman.

"It's simple to join," she said, taking out a small vial of crimson blood from a space ring. "You just need to drink this."

Loup, his mind still hazy from the strange experience, watched the blood vial and the face of the woman alternately.

Sighing, he took the vial and gulped it down in one go.

Instantly, his eyes widened, crimson veins coursing through his eyes and his entire body. He fell face-first to the ground with a loud thud.

A howl of pain tore from his lips as he felt his very soul become bound by something, by a set of rules.

Meanwhile, the young woman watched the scene with a widening grin, then mechanically bowed her head until it touched the ground.

"Praise the Harvester!"

—End of Chapter 399—

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